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The account of a Yale professor who lives on a Connecticut farm who learned from peasants struck a chord with me (Arts pages, Dec. 5). His career, though much more distinguished, is similar to mine.
Eighty-six years old, I was born on an Iowa farm of Republican-leaning parents, went to two Quaker schools, one in Iowa and one in Philadelphia, and earned a Ph.D. at a Big Ten school, the University of Iowa.
I taught for several years before 1953 at a black college, and ended up at Ball State University teaching urban and black history. In the process, I went from being a conservative Republican to a liberal Democrat (an Obama supporter, to be sure) and from a rural to an urban life, and from historian to a kind of social scientist. Why?
Like Prof. James C. Scott, I was changed by those I met whose perspectives were different from mine and like him retained support for "small property" and farm life. But my view of the power of the state is more nuanced, as in the case of human rights.
I disagree with him, however, about shearing sheep. Although my family always had sheep, those animals were shorn by professionals. I sheared only one, and that was in a contest at the Iowa State Fair in my 4-H Club days. I came in third in a field of three. I was not proud of my feat, and I was as nervous as when I took my doctoral orals.
DWIGHT W. HOOVER
Sarasota, Fla., Dec. 5, 2012
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